Warning to those of the Mary Whitehouse fraternity: During oneparticular sentence of this review there are references tonumerous swear words. Sorry for this. I had toyed with the ideaof removing the offending line, but in the interest of thepublic's right to know I kept it. To be honest, you must have leda fairly sheltered life if you are shocked by such words. Allletters of complaint and death threats will be read (not), eatenand then disposed of down the toilet!

Ben Elton - November 5th 1993, Portsmouth Guildhall, Portsmouth

This concert thing started several months ago, August I think,when Philip, my close friend, promised that he and I would go to aconcert together, as the last and only one I'd been to was Trevorand Simon's "Swing Your Pants" tour (which was great!) a few yearsago. Later that month Philip announced that Ben Elton, comicextraordinaire, would be coming to the Portsmouth Guildhall. Ididn't need to be asked twice. I'd heard and seen many of Ben'sTV and Standup shows, but to actually be there was an opportunityI would not miss. Getting tickets proved not to be as easy as I'd thought. Everytime I phoned the Guildhall Box Office it was either engaged orwhen I did get through I was put on a queueing system. (As Idon't pay the phone bill I would hang up.) It was decided that wewould go to Portsmouth and whilst there we would seek out theGuildhall and purchase the necessary tickets. It wasn't until October the 5th, on a farewell cinema trip withmy soon-to-depart-for-university chums, that the opportunity arosefor Philip and myself to go on a mini quest across Portsmouth tothe Guildhall. Half an hour later and £12.50 each worse off, wehad the tickets! Various whoops and cries of joy could be heardfloating across Portsmouth that evening as we returned highlysuccessful. November the 5th (Guy Fawkes night) was the night itwould happen.

I called for Philip at about 18:00 and we left shortly afterwardsfor the walk to Chichester Railway Station. Just at that moment abus pulled up, and we decided to take that and save our poor younglegs the pain of exercise. Not a good move as it turned out. Yesit got us to where we wanted to go, but I really annoyed thedriver because I used up all his change as I only had a tenner.We got to the station at 18:16 just as a train that could havetaken us to where we wanted to go left! Anyway, we bought ourtickets and waited for the 18:32 train. At 18:20 a train pulledin which turned out to be the 18:16, which was late (some thingsnever change), on we hopped. Fishbourne, Bosham, Nutbourne,Southbourne, Emsworth, Warblington, Havant, Bedhampton, Frattonand finally Portsmouth and Southsea. Hurrah we'd arrived(almost).

Ten minutes later we arrived at the Guildhall and quicklyentered. We immediately found our seats, E39 and E40, which werefive rows from the front and to the right of the stage. Directlyin front of us was a huge 6 foot speaker blasting out "Gimme AllYour Lovin'" from ZZ Top's "Greatest Hits". At least we wouldn'thave any trouble hearing. While the hall started to fill up I mentioned to Philip thatSod's law said that some tall 'bastard' would sit in front of usand therefore ruin the evening. Philip replied that as Sod's lawaffects everyone, everyone would have some tall 'bastard' sittingin front of them. The result of this being that the people in thefront row would be 15 foot tall. Thankfully Sod had taken thenight off. At 19:40, the lights dimmed and the concert began.

The concert was utterly brilliant. My jaw muscles ached and Icried I laughed so much (well almost). Ben did lots of his usualtype of material, not that he actually repeated any old stuff, itwas almost all new. He talked about such subjects as (in noparticular order): "John Major", "Crime and Punishment - PoliceLeague Tables" (very funny!!!), "The Ministry of Wierd Design" (orsomething like that), which led into "Motorway Cafés", "MotorwayCafé Kettles and Teacups", "Déjà vu", "The Aftermath of Sex" (thiswill definitely not appear on the BBC! (at a later instant,actually, it has, ED.), "Non-absorbent Tissues and Napkins","Tampons" (of course), "Public Toilets and Foreplay" (see abovebit on sex), "Smear Tests" (see above bit on sex), "Sod's Law"which he dismissed and proved that there was no such thing,"Baywatch", "Whales", "Sexism in Architecture" and "Post Officeand Supermarket Queues". There were lots of little improvisedbits and other things I've forgotten about already. Needless tosay he said f@ck, shit, tit, wank, bum, fart, piss, etc quite alot. There had been a twenty minute interval at 20:50 duringwhich time people played sardines in the bars and corridors. We,however, had decided that a quick walk outside was in orderbecause it had become fairly warm inside and my bottom wassuffering due to a slightly uncomfortable seat. Anyway, itfinished at about 22:40 and I was slightly disappointed when thehouse lights came on as I'd expected there to be an encore. Ohwell...

Afterwards, most of our time was spent at Portsmouth stationsitting around (and in my case gorging on chocolate, only to findthat the Coke machine was empty!!!) waiting for the 23:40 trainwhich would take us home. It was fairly uneventful, except forsome ever so slightly drunken teenagers who fortunately didn't geton the train back to Chichester. We arrived at Chi station a fewminutes before midnight and started the walk home. We went ourseparate ways when we reached Philip's road, which left me to walkalone through the estate where I live, now in complete and utterdarkness, to my house. I arrived home at 00:45 tired but veryhappy. All in all the evening was a great success, worth all the troublegetting the tickets. I can only say that if you ever get thechance to see Ben Elton in concert, take it!

Note: Many thanks must go to Mary Ann Bart who very kindly proofread this article and therefore saved me the embarrassment ofshowing off my punctuation and grammar mistakes to the world(again).

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